Ten Hag realism should strengthen not weaken his Man United claim

Erik ten Hag knows Manchester United is going to be a long-term project. This should strengthen not weaken his claim on the job, but plenty appear unwilling to see reality and face those awkward questions.

Literally any time Manchester United do anything these days, I find myself thinking of Michael Spicer’s “This is Manchester United Football Club” bit.

Though better known for his ‘Room Next Door’ skits where a near-constant stream of source material from Tory MPs who are both cartoonishly stupid and evil has kept him busy since the start of the first lockdown, I still think the Manchester United bit is his most perceptive.

Sure, the Room Next Door is a brilliantly clever idea expertly executed, but it’s also just a tiny bit too popular with the sort of person who considers words like ‘wankpuffin’ or ‘shitgibbon’ to be the very height of wit and who watches a Led By Donkeys Line of Duty parody and instead of cringing out a lung thinks ‘Haha! I’d like to see Boris wriggle out of this one!’.

We’ve gone off topic. Manchester United, that’s what we’re here to talk about. Manchester United Football club. Man United. Anyway, in the Manchester United bit, Spicer plays a Generic Pundit whose entire assessment of goings on at Old Trafford is to just say “This is Manchester United Football Club we’re talking about” in increasingly exasperated and disbelieving tones. There is no actual analysis, just an implicit view that things shouldn’t be as they currently are, because it’s Manchester United.

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